WRITING LESBIAN FICTION, SCIENCE FICTION, AND FANTASY, SINCE THE 20TH CENTURY

A Funny (Lesbian) Thing Happened on the Way to the (NaMoWriMo) Forum

I would’ve liked to say this didn’t take some the shine off, but it did. And interesting in light of my previous post on becoming ‘invisible’.

The facts are these:

I wanted to connect with other lesbian SF writers on NanoWriMo so I posted this:

Lesbians in SpaaaaaceI decided to start this thread because I did a search for ‘lesbian’ and only found one thread title that had ‘lesbian’ in it in the first 10 pages of the search. That was for the whole NaNo siteNow there are two!I’m talking about lesbians who get out of bed in the morning, pull on their big-girl kick-ass space boots and go save the galaxy!Lesbian FTL engineers and ore freighter pilots, stellar cartographers and xeno-archeologists, cooks and colonels.Lesbians talking, laughing, loving, breathing, fighting, f*cking, crying, drinking, riding, winning, losing, cheating, kissing, thinking, dreaming … (3 gold stars if you know this reference)Lesbians doing every imaginable and beyond-imagining job in SF.Here’s my novel synopsis. The idea was sparked by the score counter in Bejeweled Twist – another 3 stars if you know this too! Just in case I don’t win one of the ’30 covers, 30 days’ covers, I used the amazing and fun-est ever, Pulp-O-mizer to create a ‘pulp fiction’ one.Synopsis:Humanity has reached the Asteroid Belt, and is poised to expand beyond the solar system. Only one thing stands in their way, the Tarra company who for decades, has had a choke hold on the technology and fuel needed to make that leap.Captain Gorda Figaro of Mobius Station, a 3rd generation O’Neil sphere, tries to keep a lid on the explosive situation, while hiding her true motives from a Tarra envoy bent on keeping the Station and all who call her home, under Earth’s control.Bel Beck, a ‘scraper’ (asteroid miner who ‘scrapes’ the minerals from the surfaces of the asteroids) spends her time on-station making Gorda Figaro’s life hell, and the rest of the time working with the rebel scrapers, (the Knight Whiskey Runners) who are searching for an alternative to Tarra fuel.

… and checked back the next day to see if anyone had joined in. Someone had – a moderator, who informed me she was ‘… going to lock this as a duplicate post.’ because ‘ …there are a bunch of us writing queer space farers’ on the ‘LGBT+scifi thread’.

You know that feeling when your gut tells you something is going on, but you have nothing really concrete to support it?

Then something happens, so small in the grand scheme of things, that you’re tempted to dismiss it out of hand, but you’ve learned some hard lessons about trusting your instincts and/or intuition, and suddenly you see that tiny thing as a clear … signpost, if nothing else.

I don’t identify as queer, not do I write queer fiction. I am a lesbian who writes lesbian fiction. And it seemed to me there was no place set at the NaNo table for my humble little thread.

***

‘Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it’ – probably said be a great many people but attributed to George Santayana

P.S. OK, so it wasn’t exactly a ‘humble’ thread. I don’t think I could do ‘humble’ if I tried. It was exuberant and full of joie de vivre!

14 comments on “A Funny (Lesbian) Thing Happened on the Way to the (NaMoWriMo) Forum”

Your one little thread scared the something out of someone – out of millions of writers and thread, they couldn’t spare room for a bit of diversity? Sorry you have to put up with this kind of stuff – this is ridiculous.

I will never understand mankind’s need to exclude–especially under false pretense. Lord, if I excluded everyone from my life who didn’t live/believe like I do, I’d be one lonely guy. I’d even have to disown my own children! (Of course that would be my fault for teaching them to use their brain and think for themselves. hahaha) I do hope you’re able to find someone to partner with for the challenge, even if it’s not in an “official” capacity.

What?! A NoNo from the word Go? That moderator should be moderated out of their … moderation. Put on your kick-ass space boots and kick them to the galactic sphere where grumpy Plogerians eat moderators for breakfast. I don’t know you well, but there’s no duplicating you in this world or any others. Looking forward to read about the Pawz of Doom. A new addition to the family, I guess? Leaving you mumbling to myself, “%$#@ moderators…”